Privacy From data shadows to data brokers

From Gender and Tech Resources

Thinking through how the data traces we leave are used, and how they fit into business models of the companies who have access to them.

Prerequisites

The group should already have carried out 'Analogue data shadows' session, and facilitators should have a good understanding of how the 'data industry' works, and be able to advise the groups and answer questions they might have on how their data is used by different service providers.

Facilitators should prepare beforehand 2 sets of small slips of paper: firstly, ones with different digital behaviours or actions on them, to distribute one per participant during the exercise.

Samples of 'digital behaviours' could include:

You just downloaded the Spotify playlist “girls just wanna have fun”
You booked flights to Honolulu
You Skyped with your best friend for 2 hours
You downloaded Snapchat
You lost your iPhone, and used the “Find my iPhone” app to find it
You used wifi in an airport, and gave your email address and personal details in order to get access.

Secondly: digital behaviours that people can do to others, such as:

You just invited everyone in your group to Google plus
You sent everyone your geocoordinates to meet up for a party later
You just signed up for an app that needs access to all of your contacts

Make sure there is at least one 'digital action', and one digital behaviour that people do to others, per participant.

Methodology

Put participants in groups of 5, and ask them to put their 'data shadow' illustrations together on one big piece of paper.

Give each participant an envelope, and ask them to stick it on their individual data shadow images – then, distribute the slips of paper so that each participant has at least one digital behaviour, and one digital action that they do to others.

Ask them to put these slips of paper into their respective envelopes, so that every data shadow illustration will have a set of papers in their envelopes describing different online activities.

Now, ask each group to leave their collective tables to go to another table, and look at another groups' collective data shadow.

Each group now takes the role of 'data broker', and is asked to develop a profile of the group based on the contents of the envelope, and their digital behaviours.

One of the facilitators should now take the role of an “angel investor”, who is looking to invest in a new initiative around the use of data, and participants, in their groups, are tasked with figuring out a way to sell that data to an “angel investor” – ie. one of the facilitators.

Give groups 20 minutes to plan a “pitch” to the angel investor, then bring the group back to plenary.

With the “angel investor” at the front, ask the groups to perform their pitches – remind the groups that they are trying to convince the angel investor to give them money to develop their project, and that the data they have is more valuable than other groups.

To round the session off, get the angel investor/facilitator to pick the pitch that they liked best – they are the winner!

The facilitator could give a quick round up to the group of how – though this exercise was obviously heavily fictionalised – many companies' business model relies heavily upon personal data of their users, and that they “create value” from it in this way.